This project investigates the relevance and applicability of attribution theory reformulations of the laearned helplessness model to severe, clinical depression. The project involves three studies. The first study examines the specificity of the model to depression as well as its relevance to other psychiatric syndromes. Primary depressed, secondary depressed and non-depressed-nonschizophrenic patients are exposed to contingent-success, noncontingenet-failure or exposure only conditions, while concurrently assessing their modd, expectancies, attributions and performance. The second study examines the stability of learned helplessness by exposing two groups of acute inpatients (depressed and nondepressed-nonshizophrenic) to procedures identifical to those in the first study to induce helplessness. The third study is a treatment analogue study in which acutely depressed patients are exposed to a leaned helplessness induction and then given one of four treatments: a) Contingent success, b) Reattribution training, c) Contingent success and Reattribution training or d) Waiting period. The generality of the improvements are then assessed at 12, 48 and 168 hour intervals. ae